


A Matter of Time

by Nevanna



Category: Jekyll (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-13 22:35:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1243051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevanna/pseuds/Nevanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isolated from everything he loves, Tom adapts to his new circumstances.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Matter of Time

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on 3/3/11. It takes place before and during the first episode of the miniseries. **Warning** for some innuendo, but nothing worse than one would expect from Hyde.
> 
> Special thanks to Valravnsown for being my first reader.

_Dear Claire,_

_I am sorry to have left so abruptly._

\--

Sometimes Tom thinks that if he had a choice, he would have made the most of his last night at home. He might have helped to clean the dishes, read his children a chapter of _James and the Giant Peach_ , listened to them squabble over what the Earthworm character should sound like, and tucked them in. He would have taken his wife to bed and memorized every inch of her, given both of them one more pleasant memory to hold onto.

He would have settled instead for quarrelling with her, for having to break up a screaming fight between the twins, for the sink clogging again. Anything that’s normal, anything that was _theirs._

Most of the time, he’s convinced that leaving without an explanation or a farewell – or anything but a brief telephone message when he knew she’d be out – was the better, safer option. Perhaps it’s the coward’s way out, but he hasn’t forgotten that his last attempt to spend quality time with her was cut violently short. He can still smell the blood from wounds that he doesn’t remember inflicting.

Sometimes there simply isn’t any choice. 

\--

_You have every right to be furious with me; frankly, I’d be surprised if you weren’t._

\--

His leave of absence from work, and the long days that he spent at the flat in Stadler Street, gave him plenty of time to search the Internet for case histories, past research, legends, innuendo, anything that might provide him with some sort of context for his condition. Not long ago, he would have said that things like this simply didn’t happen outside of fiction: stories of werewolves and vampires and mad scientists whose potions turned them into murderous lunatics.

In the meanwhile, he figured out other things instead: to, for instance, pay attention to the flickering lights that precipitated each blackout. He learned to recognize the crackle under his skin and behind his eyes, and to keep careful track of when, and for how long, each episode occurred. He listened to the news, and did his best to check reports of violent crimes against the times when he was not himself. Desperate to find a pattern in the chaos, he salvaged and recorded every scrap of information with a meticulous diligence that would have made his university professors proud.

The tape recorder was silver, and sleek, and fit easily in his pocket. The first time he spoke into it, he didn’t entirely expect a response. “I know that you can hear me.” How could he take responsibility for mayhem that he didn’t recall causing? How could he _not_? “I have a proposal for you.”

\--

_Please believe that you did nothing to chase me away, nor am I leaving you for somebody else. Someday I hope to be able to explain everything to you. For now, I am asking you to trust me._

\--

There were plenty of moments when he wondered why he didn’t just pack up and leave London, move to Iceland or Tibet or somewhere conveniently devoid of people, and put an ocean between himself ( _ourselves_ ) and the slightest chance of a rendezvous with his old life.

“I have a _proposal_ –“ the recorded voice turned the word into a mocking singsong – “for you too, Daddy: You should let me out to play in the daytime. I want to go to the park and watch the children. I just love children.” Was that the sound of slurping? Tom wasn’t sure he wanted to know. “They’re so _scrumptious_.”

More than ever, he wanted to press Record and tell this other self of his that _under no circumstances_ was he to go near _anybody’s_ children, ever, especially not… but to say anything of the sort, to give in to the rage and terror, would be to provide more ammunition against him and his family.

When the twins were infants, they hated to be separated, and so he and Claire would walk them around the room until they stopped fussing. One evening, as soon as Eddie had quieted, she had stared down at his tiny face and whispered, “They could grow up to be anything. Anything at all. You realize that, right?” Before Tom could get out more than a few sentences about dominant traits and the nature vs. nurture debate, she rolled her eyes. “Oh, _you_. Are you trying to put them to sleep, or me?” She was smiling as she said it. “I know that clever brain of yours never stops working, but there’s a time and a place for it.”

“What I’m saying is, I know what you mean.”

“Does it scare you?” she asked.

“No more than anything else,” he replied. Many genetic disorders or developmental challenges were visible early on, but what about illnesses, neuroses and psychoses that wouldn’t manifest until much later in life, despite the best efforts of their parents? “We just have to do the best that we can.”

Now, his alter ego calls him Daddy, and what is he, really, but some of the worst fears of any parent, made flesh? The rebellious offspring, swaggering and demanding and running wild at night, doing God knows what (and God knows whom). A walking appetite that can’t be taught or reasoned with, and could only be curtailed by the threat of a prison sentence, an end to his revels.

He has no concept of responsibility, so Tom has to shoulder it for both of them.

\--

_Give my love to Harry and Eddie, and tell them that I’ll be home as soon as I can. That’s a promise._

\--

A week before he met Katherine Reimer, the nurse who would become his ( _our_ ) aide and confidante, he woke to a thudding between his ears and a taste in his mouth that made him wish immediately that he were still unconscious: whiskey, he thought, and the women who’d been bought or enticed or… _no, no, I won’t think about that._ At least there was no blood on his clothing (this time), and he was waking up in his own flat, rather than an alley or a public toilet. These had become his best-case scenarios.

As always, he half-anticipated and half-dreaded the new message waiting for him.

“Hullo, Daddy. I had a grand old time last night. Lucy and Emma send their regards… or, at least, they did once they stopped screaming.”

Tom sat up straighter, wincing as a slender ray of sunlight struck his eyes. If possible, the oily voice oozing from the Dictaphone – his own voice, yet not – only made his head hurt more. If nothing else, he was fully conscious now.

“Oh, don’t give me that face. They enjoyed the screaming as much as I did. Wish you could have been there. You might have learned a thing or three.” The voice started warbling off key - “A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine! Go! Down!” – and kept at it until Tom pressed Stop. 

Trust the murderous lunatic to fancy a musical about a magical nanny who could clean up any mess in a matter of seconds.

The song teased his thoughts for the rest of the morning, and, as mad as it was, as much as he hated the mere thought of involving anybody else in this insanity, he had to admit that it had given him an idea. 

\--

_Take care of them, and of yourself. The three of you are, and always will be, the most important things in my life, and I am thinking of you every day._

_Your loving husband,  
Tom_

\--

He started and destroyed several drafts of the letter, either because they revealed too little or too much, or because the electricity started to sizzle as soon as he picked up the pen. Even after the schedule was in place, Tom has never quite been able to trust that his other self would play by the rules. 

“It still sounds completely insane,” he says as he seals the envelope. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she thought I’d become some kind of secret government operative.”

“Do you really plan to tell her the truth one day?” Katherine asks.

“I don’t know.” And he doesn’t. “Confiding in a loved one is different to confiding in somebody that I trust to keep a professional distance. Love always complicates things.”

“Personally, if I were married to –“

“You’re not,” he interrupts sharply. “Nor have I hired you to counsel me on matters regarding my home life.” Or what’s left of it, that is. 

“I’m sorry.” Katherine’s voice is frosty.

He rubs one wrist where the restraints were secured not long before. “So am I. It’s been… well, I don’t need to tell you what kind of day it’s been.” 

“If you don’t care to discuss your marriage” – she stares into her teacup, gripping the handle until her knuckles are white – “that’s more than all right with me.” She pours another cup and slides it across the table toward him. Tom wonders what that voice said to her, but, by prior agreement, he can’t ask.

Instead, he simply looks her in the eye and says, “Thank you.” 

It _is_ largely thanks to Katherine that, even if he can’t have a normal life with his family, the least he can do is to arrange matters so that the shards of it will be as close to normal as possible. All the same, they both know that there will be many more days like this, and it’s anybody’s guess as to whether, at the end of them, Claire will even let him back into her life for long enough to hear him explain something that he can’t fully understand. 

He knows that it’s only a matter of time before his efforts to keep control fail, and everything falls apart. He knows also that if he doesn’t at least try, he may as well place a gun to his head and pull the trigger.

There’s still time for him to shred the letter. It may mean he is a coward, but there are worse things to find oneself becoming.


End file.
